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Thursday, 26 July 2012

Geoylimpx and the last couple of days.

Ive been so so busy in the last couple of days. It all started with the bike ride on Tuesday, this was a lovely ride with various icons picked up and a blank d/t square filled in (to find another one has changed and become blank again). Rode past JK's house and a few of us met at the pub and after cooling down decided to go do the south section of jolly jax's new series that's based on the otmoor challenge.
At the start i decided to pack my waders hearing of the depths that the water gets to and only needed them on for one cache to get through. in 30c heat wearing waders is a weird experience. there was some good hides on this series and some high d/t's in places which always a bonus. At the pub meet i didnt stay long as i hadnt eaten all day and was starting to dehydrate so decided it was time to head home, log what ive done, cool off in the bath before preparing for the nights night cache event.
Arriving a bit early at the night cache event on christmas common i was greeted by simply paul, here i was informed that i had come second in the treasure hunt game at the last event and kindly was able to pick a prize, sadly no hoodies as i would have had one. While Paul set up the night event i was left to greet anyone who turned up including Alex aka wonkey donkey. Near to the start we were broken from the peace as two military helicopters flew over and over very low down on night training exercises, no doubt they would be wondering what a group of cachers were doing out here at this time of night.
Some more people turned up and Paul told us what we had to do (no i wont give it away as it will make it more interesting if I or Paul hold another one) so off into the forest to find our prey. I soon had one to hand, but a new twist had been added, Paul was going to come into the forest after 10 mins to hunt us down with only a headtorch and light saber and lots of noises.
Soon Paul was on his way and suddenly in the distance i could see the light saber waving about, kind of spooky. Soon he was near so i sat down next to a tree with my torches off ready to do a blinding light and run attack lol. but he walked passed and i followed a little way before making my escape up another path.
Later I could see wonkey donkey coming down the track so into stealth mode using just a uv light to see my way i followed down another track and jumped out on him. By now we had been in the forest an hour so we decided to make our way back looking for other cachers which my led lenser torch would illuminate quickly and make them look like started rabbits.
I only found one so came in third place, but had my pleasure of stalking and jumping out of people in a forest that had deer and other nocturnal animals within.
Wednesday morning (well the nightcache was technically Wednesday morning but Tuesday night) was the walk meet up at Woodstock. Sat in the shade we talked about ways of using the new puztok's designed for the geolympix in our caches and ideas to go on. Later we went for a walk around Blenhiem Palace in blistering 30c+ heat. The first cache found by me, the third once everyone had given up and seen the dnfs from the previous two attempts and joint find on the forth with wonkey donkey.
On to the evening it was a trip to Coombe Hill for the closing ceremony of the geolympix, not only was we at i believe the highest point in Buckinghamshire at around 825ft but Britain oldest remaining traditional geocache is up here, a nice size ammo box hidden in a nice location. The BBC Mike Bussell cache is up here featured on a bbc news story on geocaching last year, so got them too.
A group photo and closing words from Paul on the event and everyone given a pictok to put out in geocaches in a hope it will take off, mine will go out somewhere wherever i end up on holiday next month.
Whilst up here me and wonkey donkey set about solving the night cache trail head. we ended up at the pub for a cold drink and some food before finally cracking it to the amusement of team hippo who had set it. This was an excellent night cache that got harder and harder and needed two of you due to some of the stages where you had to re pick up the trail. We soon had the numbers to hand and soon lost the trail as we looked round i could see two trail markers, heres the next stage i shouted as i headed to it to find it was a deer hiding by a tree which got up and ran off.
When we eventually got to what we thought was gz we were then pointed to the next stage where wonkey donkey showed me something on my garmin i didnt know existed and we soon had the nice size ammo can to hand.
Well what a week, im looking forward to seeing all the pictures soon and am back to work today for a well earned rest :) This week is certainly one i will remember and most enjoyable mega event/week ever. Thank you to Paul and the geolympix team for all their hard work and also to everyone who attended and made it so successful.